


With hardly a word

by Roshwen



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Conversation in the dark, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, mentions of animal abuse, mentions of mental torture, no goldfish were harmed in the writing of this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 10:36:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roshwen/pseuds/Roshwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat.</p><p>They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.</p><p>So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	With hardly a word

‘I couldn’t have done it.’

Sherlock’s voice is low and soft in the blackness of the room. They’re lying in bed after what John already knows will have been, without a doubt, the most unsettling case of their career. Sherlock always used to say that when a doctor went wrong he’d make the first of criminals, but John now has first hand proof that a psychologist gone wrong will ruthlessly push the doctors down to second place. Because a doctor might know how to hurt a body from the outside, but a psychologist knows how to cut someone up from the inside. The man had driven three victims to commit suicide before Sherlock had figured out where to find him, and he had made off with Sherlock two days before John had actually found his hideout and put a bullet in his sadistic brain.

The darkness surrounding them is absolute. All they have to go on are voices and as much as you can make out when you’re pressed together back to chest and head to toe. John has managed to wrap himself entirely around Sherlock’s frame, despite their height difference, effectively both trapping the taller man and shielding him against every conceivable evil.

John is actually fiercely grateful he can’t see Sherlock’s face; just a little more light, the slightest possibility of actually seeing anything and the detective would have been sure to keep to himself, not disclosing anything about the past three days, and John needs him to talk, needs him to open up so bad he’s been practically radiating please-talk-to-me waves in Sherlock’s general direction for two hours now. He nuzzles even closer, pressing his lips to his lover’s neck in a silent encouragement to keep talking.

The lack of tickling curls in his nose makes for an instant stab of regret and fury. John has no doubts about which ranks higher in Sherlock’s list of Terrible Things: he would happily have spent another week strapped down on a table with his head under a dripping faucet than have someone take a razor anywhere near his scalp. Apparently the psychologist-cum-psychopath had somehow gotten hold of this bit of information and, acting accordingly, had freed Sherlock of his hair almost immediately.

Sherlock doesn’t say anything in spite of John’s quiet plea, perhaps feeling those first five words should have been enough.

Silence reigns for five more minutes. Then John, ever the soldier, decides to fuck the soft approach and boldly charges ahead.

‘Couldn’t have done what?’

The answer takes long to arrive, and when it does, it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

‘I couldn’t have shot him like that. I’m not a good man.’

This bit of information, John thinks, is spectacularly unhelpful.

‘Sherlock. I killed a man for you in white-hot rage. Justified white-hot rage, it’s true, but still. How is that good?’

Empathic headshaking. ‘Don’t be an idiot, John. Killing people isn’t good, but you did it _because_ you’re good. I’m not, so I couldn’t have done it.’ He turns around in John’s arms, resting his face against John’s shoulder. Correctly interpreting the silence as a token of still not understanding, he continues: ‘It’s something I read once. I thought I’d deleted it, but apparently I wasn’t thorough enough. _If a man has you entirely at his mercy, you’d better hope that man is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word._ ’

John gathers him closer, pressing another kiss to the top of his pathetically naked head. ‘I didn’t exactly shoot him out of the goodness of my heart, Sherlock.’

When he’d finally gotten there (too late, absolutely and unforgivably and far _too late_ ) Sherlock had been well underway to being driven out of his mind by a perverted combination of a blindfold, _Yellow Submarine_ on repeat and Chinese water torture. There had been no room for thinking, planning or carefully weighing pros and cons of various courses of action, and even if there had been, it had been concealed by the fiery red haze dancing in front of him. He’d simply whipped out his gun, disposed of the guy and gotten Sherlock the hell out of there. It hadn't been the time nor the place for anything good.

‘What would you do if I put a goldfish in the blender?’ Sherlock suddenly asks, in the same tone he asked how his potential flatmate felt about the violin. ‘Not doing anything to it, just fill the blender with water and use it as a tank. What would you do?’

The jump of tracks is so abrupt, it takes John a minute to catch up, and another minute to form a coherent answer.

‘Yell at you, I suppose. Then I’d go and find a proper fish bowl. Why would you put a fish in a blender?’

Sherlock’s half-smile is the faintest tickle against his chest. ‘I wouldn’t, but someone else once did. Put ten goldfish in separate blenders in the name of art, then plugged them in so the only thing people had to do, should they feel so inclined, was press the button to make fish soup. Two fish were mauled within a few hours, after which the project was shut down.’

Silence. Then: ‘Would you? Press that button?’

By now, John has been through enough conversations with Sherlock to know that the only way out of the Swamp of Confusion and into the Meadow of Understanding is via the Path of Answer the Question. So he does.

 ‘God, no. Wouldn’t let you anywhere near it, though. No offense.’

‘None taken.’ Sherlock peels his face of John’s shoulder and John gets the distinct feeling the detective is trying to peer through the impenetrable dark and see his face, to no avail. ‘But that’s it. That’s my point. You wouldn’t push that button, but I would. You can just shoot a man and be done with him, but I will string him up and make him _bleed_. If it had been you, if that man had done to you what he’d done to me, I would have wanted him to _suffer._ And I know that’s not Good, I _know_ , but that’s the _point._ ’

John is quiet for a moment, not at all surprised at the quiet fury in Sherlock’s voice but moved all the same. He is also starting to see The Point, which renders him speechless even more.

‘In itself, it’s a Bit Not Good to want to hurt someone like that,’ he says eventually when he has his voice back. ‘The sentiment behind it is… not bad, though. Not bad at all.’

‘Sentiment,’ Sherlock murmurs. He means something else.

John smiles. ‘Yeah.’ He means something else too.

 

ooOoo

The darkness in the room seems just that bit lighter as the Good man and the Bit Not Good But Still Not Bad man drift of gently to sleep. Tomorrow, the sun will rise. They will talk some more and then kiss each other. They will have sex and then eat breakfast. Sherlock will go and wrap the case up at Scotland Yard and John will go fill in a shift at the surgery.

In a few months, Sherlock’s hair will grow back. In a few months, John will quit the surgery and become Sherlock’s full time partner, in every sense of the word.

And in a few years, Sherlock will travel from Not Good to… well, somewhere in the right direction. He’ll never be entirely Good, not in the way John is and he knows it. But he will try and as long as he has John by his side, he might come dangerously close.

**Author's Note:**

> In 2000, artist Marco Evaristti put ten live goldfish in a blender, plugged them in and left it to visitors to push the button (or not). One fish was killed, after which the art project was shut down. It then continued to spark a heated debate about animal cruelty and art.
> 
> Also, the quote Sherlock uses is to be found in Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett, and only slightly altered by me.


End file.
